It is known to manufacture metal containers, such as fuel tanks, from sheet metal plates, by positioning the plates against one another and butt welding the seams between the metal plates. The plates may be temporarily positioned against each other in any suitable manner, such as by means of clamps, jigs or tack welds. As a further possibility, the plates may be parts of a folded blank.
A problem that occurs when manufacturing a container in this manner is that weld spatter and burrs occur within the interior of the container. For certain applications, such defects are deemed to be unacceptable. Conventionally, welding defects may be removed by manual grinding after completion of the welding, but this task is labour intensive and therefore adds to the manufacturing costs.
It has previously been proposed to coat the interior of the container with an agent for preventing adhesion of weld spatter. The agent for preventing the adhesion of weld spatters s\is formed in JP2003290979 by mixing inorganic oxide particles and joining agents into a solvent. The agent is applied as a film to the weld zones and to the members near these zones. An air layers is formed between the spatters and the surface of the coating films which prevents heat retained in the spatters from being easily transferred to the coating films and the welding members, thereby preventing adhesion of the spatters.